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Page added on February 3, 2015
There are too many of us on this planet
Earlier this month, Pope Francis made news when he said that not only was climate change real, but it was mostly man-made. Then, last week, he said that couples do not need to breed “like rabbits” but rather should plan their families responsibly — albeit without the use of modern contraception.
Though the pope did not directly link the two issues, climate scientists and population experts sat up and took notice. That’s because for years, they have quietly discussed the links between population growth and global warming, all too aware of the sensitive nature of the topic. Few of them can forget the backlash after then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in 2009 that it was strange to talk about climate change without mentioning population and family planning. Critics immediately suggested that she was calling for eugenics, thus shutting down the conversation and pushing the issue back into the shadows. The pope’s support of smaller families might help that discussion come back into the light, where it belongs.
Sensitive subject or not, the reality is that unsustainable human population growth is a potential disaster for efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. These days, the biggest population growth is occurring in developing nations, which is why any discussion must be sensitive to the perception that well-off, industrialized nations — the biggest climate polluters, often with majority-white populations — might be telling impoverished people of color to reduce their numbers. In fact, person for person, reducing birth rates in industrialized nations has a bigger impact on greenhouse gas emissions because affluent people use more of the Earth’s resources and depend more heavily on fossil fuels.
In other words, population is not just a Third World issue. More than a third of the births in the United States are the result of unintended pregnancies, and this month the United Nations raised its prediction of population growth by the year 2050 because of unforeseen, rising birth rates in industrialized nations. So even though the highest rates of population growth are in the poorest and least educated countries — Africa’s population is expected to triple by the end of the century — any attempt to address the issue will have to target the industrialized world as well.
By 2050, world population is expected to increase from its current level of about 7 billion to somewhere between 8 and 11 billion. According to a 2010 analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, keeping that growth to the lower number instead of even the mid-range 9.6 billion could play a significant role in keeping emissions low enough to avoid dangerous levels of climate change by 2050. A more recent report, though, casts doubt on whether it would be possible to bring about dramatic enough changes in population quickly enough to hold the total to 8 billion.
Another 2010 report, by the nonprofit Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C, predicted that fast-growing developing countries will become the dominant emitters of greenhouse gases within a generation. That’s partly because of their rising populations but also because of their poverty; they are less able to afford solar energy projects or other investments in non-fossil energy.
The report also notes that these countries and their people are far more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A disproportionate number of impoverished countries are in low-lying areas where rising sea levels are expected to cause disastrous flooding. Agricultural productivity is expected to fall 40% in India and sub-Saharan Africa by the second half of this century.
The population issue is just beginning to get some of the public attention it deserves. The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations’ board of climate experts, included concerns about population size, saying, “Globally, economic and population growth continued to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.” For the first time in its five years of producing such reports, the panel acknowledged that family-planning programs could make a real difference, both in slowing the rate of warming and in helping vulnerable nations adapt to its effects.
And progress can be made without draconian or involuntary measures. According to Karen Hardee, director of the Evidence Project for the nonprofit Population Council, developing nations are already beginning to recognize the usefulness of family planning in preventing hunger and crowding and in combating climate change. She cites Rwanda, Ethiopia and Malawi as countries that are taking the first steps on their own.
But they and other nations need assistance on two fronts: education for girls and access to free or affordable family-planning services. The benefit of even minimal education is startling: Women in developing countries who have had a year or more of schooling give birth to an average of three children; with no schooling, the number is 4.5. Add more years of schooling and the number of births drops further. Women who have attended school also give birth later in life to healthier children.
The analysis by the Center for Global Development says that access to family planning and girls’ education — even a little of it — are among the most cost-effective strategies for combating climate change.
Industrialized nations have their own issues when it comes to reducing birth rates; among other things, policymakers must address the practical questions of how a smaller working-age population would support a larger elderly population. This is a short-term concern, though. Yes, lower birth rates would mean some years of struggle, but once the younger population aged, there would be a smaller group of the elderly to be supported in the future.
It is not a sustainable scenario to keep producing larger young populations. Our finite planet cannot host infinite growth. It’s already showing the strain.
36 Comments on "There are too many of us on this planet"
Plantagenet on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 8:06 pm
The majority of world population growth is projected to occur in Africa. We can all wish for zero population growth, but the likelihood of the Pope, or the UN, or anyone taking real steps to stop population growth is minimal.
GregT on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 8:23 pm
The vast majority of energy and resource usage is from North Americans. Population is indeed part of the global problem, but a bigger part of that problem is over consumption by us in the west.
Davy on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 8:30 pm
The converging disequilibrium of finance and energy within 3-5 years are going to force the issues. Population will likely be halted at no more than 500MIL increase. Just a guess based on financial system decay and POD ETP oil issues.
Global food production is industrial, monoculture production, vast distribution systems, facilitated by a fragile financial system. If these vital elements fail global famine will ensue. Someone here please tell me this is not the case. We have all our eggs in a rotten basket. That is a really bad game plan but it has been fun while it lasted.
Davy on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 8:40 pm
Greg, I see over population and growing consumption in the third world as the issue. The west is already in decline with a serious decline waiting in the wings.
4BIL people in Asia is the predicamant. Even if 300 MIL Americans consume less. The amounts are just too far apart to compensate for 4BIL people growing and consuming more.
That statement is no excuse for the western overconsumption. This is stating a predicament with no nice solution. The solution is a collapse of western living standards with significant population loss and a halving of the Asian population.
GregT on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 8:43 pm
Davy,
Agreed, but those that depend on a JIT delivery system will fare worst. Those that live on, or close to the farms, will fare better. As I have said many times before, a person’s locale shapes their perspective. You live on a farm Davy, at this moment in time, I do not. The city that I currently live in, would become a war zone within one week of any major disruption to the JIT system. I’m thinking that you would do alright for a bit longer than that.
GregT on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 8:49 pm
In so far as Asia is concerned Davy, I also agree, to a point. The vast majority of people in Asia are first generation removed from the family farms. Most young people working in the sweat shops that manufacture our consumer crap, are still sending money back home to their families on the farms. In North America, most people in the cities are two or three generations removed from the farms. They wouldn’t have a clue how to work the land, never mind have the land to go back home to.
Makati1 on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 9:25 pm
GregT, you see the picture. Filipinos/Asians are survivors. Almost everyone of them learns at an early age how to live off the land. Most raise some of their own food if they live where there is a spot of dirt. Including in the city.
There are no laws preventing you from planting a garden in your front yard. Grass is the exception here. The Us has less than 5% of their population that still farm and most are well past 50. The Ps has about 55% who still farm and most of them have family that would move back onto the farm when the SHTF. A drive through the countryside makes me glad I live here and not in the Us. No farm there will be safe from armed pillagers. Here, monkeys are the biggest problem and they don’t carry guns. LOL
Makati1 on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 9:27 pm
BTW: Us = 25% of the world’s resources. If all were equal, the Us could support over one billion more people with a reasonable level of comfort on that 25%. (Do the math if you doubt.) THAT is why the Us has to come down to the level of the rest of the world and stop pillaging every country with resources. If it happened tomorrow, it would not be too soon. Are YOU prepared? I am.
GregT on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 10:14 pm
“There are no laws preventing you from planting a garden in your front yard.”
Actually Mak, incorrect on that count. There are laws where I live against people planting vegetables in their front yards. The same reason why municipalities won’t plant fruit trees. They say that they will attract rats.
GregT on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 10:16 pm
Sorry, I misunderstood you Mak.
Davy on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 1:27 am
Greg, the problem with Asia is the absolute numbers of people and the area in question for food production. Asia has raped its best land and water by population growth and industrialization/urbanization. Asians will have to be survivors. The once, twice, three times a farmer stuff don’t fly with me either. It sure made Mak feel good though.
yoananda on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 3:00 am
It’s not really the population number, it’s the consumer number.
An rich old american is worth dozens of young poor africans in term of ressources consumptions.
Which means we are ALL concerned by overpopulation.
Living longer is the same issue as breeding more.
Davy on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 6:40 am
YO, it is a complex mixture of issues of which at this point in time over consumption is the primary issues for adaptation and mitigation strategies. The people are here and in the pipeline. The massive die off is yet to happen. Yet, the bitching and moaning of the per-capita idiots that want their cake and eat it is not going to get traction. Fairness to grow with someone else doing the descending is not going to happen. We all have to do less with less. This is why I have flick boogers at Mak. He thinks Asia should be allowed to grow with population and consumption and it is the west that has to descend. Cat Piss Mak! We all have to immediately embrace descent strategies to mitigate and adjust to the shit storm ahead.
Makati1 on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 7:36 am
GregT, that’s ok. Sometimes I don’t use correct punctuation. English is a difficult language as my Filipino friends are always pointing out. It is illogical and full of ‘exceptions’ to the rules.
I know that most places in the US have laws preventing you from doing anything that might take a few dollars out of a corporation’s pocket. Here everyone is an entrepreneur. If you have never been in an Asian country, it is hard to imagine, but, most everyone has a side business going. That is why the major tax is the VAT tax on what you actually buy, not what income you have.
GregT on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 8:04 am
Davy,
Again, no country will be left unscathed. Cities everywhere especially, but from what I see daily here in this City, people would be lost. Most young women don’t even know how to cook anymore. If they see an insect, or god forbid a mouse, they go AWOL. People have become detached from the reality that is the natural world. Children don’t even get dirty anymore. Most know a lot about little, and almost nothing about a lot. They have no concept of physical work. This is simply not the case in developing countries.
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 8:56 am
Too many people. Some of them need to go away.
You first.
Davy on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 9:07 am
Greg, not around here. You can claim many but not a majority in a generalized way in the US. This helplessness is not as bad as the anti Americans with an agenda claim. This message of the poor American culture is a distortion and spreads misinformation via an agenda. There is allot of other skills and talents to offset these issues you mention.
The developing world has its own issues making them and their people just as bad in their own way. One undeniable issues is the sheer overshoot of population that makes much of the third world a locust population. Mak’s p’s is in this condition. I am just not going to buy into the U.S. is bad and the developing world good. It is stereotyping with an agenda. I am not going to talk up the US either. But I will spit on the anti Americans here whenever they spout their puke.
yoananda on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 9:21 am
Not to many people, but to many (world) “GDP” …
There is a GDP limit of what earth can support (for a given technological paradigm).
So more people means less GDP per capita.
Who will give up some of his share for the others ?
You first.
Boat on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 10:27 am
Let’s say you want to build a house. In many undeveloped countries there would be a plethora of workers just to pour a foundation. They would mix the concrete by hand unless they were lucky enough to have a mixer run by motor or electricity. In the US a pump truck would do 3 house foundations at once with a long line of concrete trucks. In one day a small crew of 6 can do what it takes dozens of workers can do. This makes the homes much more affordable. Every step of the way the US construction industry can build a home with efficiency. Yet guys like Mak saying we are the problem. If he were the one building a home I bet he would rather have the cheaper home instead of hiring the bucket brigade at a much higher price.
GregT on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 11:37 am
“In the US a pump truck would do 3 house foundations at once with a long line of concrete trucks”
Exactly where the problem lies in a post oil world. There is no plethora of workers to replace what oil does for us.
Also, many of the people that manufacture all of our consumer goods overseas make $3 per day. Not $30 per hour. It is our energy slaves that allow us a higher standard of living while avoiding the manual labour.
Don on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 3:09 pm
I think I am going to have to disagree with your scenario boat. I would say that overall the bucket brigade is probably cheaper.
The main problem with using machines to automate tasks or replace larger workforces is that the jobs that are replaced are almost always non-skilled labor type jobs. These jobs which would otherwise be filled by a person that either has low intelligence, is lazy, or both. Because of the level of job replacement we have in the US we now have an over abundance of unintelligent and lazy people that are not able to work. If they are not able to make money then their lives need to be subsidized by the taxpayers through government redistribution of wealth with programs like welfare and food stamps.
When you look at the numbers and realize that only 44% of US adults have a job, that means that the other 56% have to rely on the wealth creation of the 44% of workers. In most cases the people that are being taken care of are spouses who stay at home, parents who took care of you and now you need to take care of them, in general people that have worth to the person taking care of them. There are however the worthless people,(people whose worth is less than 0, not trying to use this as an insult), as well. Ones that provide no value, yet still need to have their lives subsidized through taxpayer dollars.
In short, If you want to pay only 3 guys with a machine to lay your house’s foundation, for a lower one time cost, instead of 20 to do it with buckets be prepared to support the other 17 for the rest of their lives.
GregT on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 3:27 pm
“be prepared to support the other 17 for the rest of their lives”
Yah, they’ll probably all end up working for the government……………
Davy on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 5:07 pm
Don, not all those people you say are not working are not working. Around here there is many people that have no official job but they do whatever. I hire them on here at the farm all the time. Concrete work, drywall, fence builder, and laborer. Some of these people are on the tax payer’s tit BUT is that so bad? You know why I say that and that is because the 1% is getting all the gravy. They are getting free public money to realize a private profit. The poor are getting triaged out of the system into poverty. Once in poverty they are throw away people just like most of the plastic shit we buy from Asia. Many so called workers you mentioned are in jobs that are actually destructive to our long term future. Is a friggen theme park going to make us more resilient or sustainable?
You guys have to start thinking in a different way. Traditional BAU thinking is done. We are in a new age of right is wrong and wrong is right. What you see is not what it appears. It is a time of paradoxes and catch 22’s. The small amount of welfare in proportion to the huge amount of subsidies for the rich who are guaranteed profit by reason of privilege of connections pales in comparison to a pittance of welfare that is barely an existence the poor get. The people that receive welfare some of who are lazy and dumb are lazy and dumb because of these rich parasites who have gutted the lower and middle class for their benefit and to the detriment of society as a whole. They love for you all to think the way you do about the dumb and lazy. These people deserve a voice. I do not condone dumb and lazy but don’t worry because before long the dumb and lazy will go the way of the dodo bird in a collapsed world. The rich are going to be poor and hungry. Around here many people are poor but proud. How many of those rich assholes are going to be proud?
redpill on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 7:20 pm
It looks more and more like we are collectively going to do nothing but point fingers in regards to “who’s to blame” until Mother Nature steps up to the plate.
Yes, the West over consumes. We’ll pay a price for that for sure. But the East is chomping at the bit to produce all that shite we consume so they can lift their people out of poverty. They will pay a far heavier price because they are sacrificing their local environment to do all this producing.
Weird, I would have thought this piece would have been a giant red cape to the Noob.
Don on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 7:34 pm
Davy, I think you may have missed my point, which basically is that we can replace menial and labor intensive tasks with machines or send them overseas, but, if we do we are taking away a job. When we replace too many jobs we wind up with a larger labor force than we have jobs left. The people that suffer from this the most are the ones that are too unintelligent to fill the remaining jobs that require more intelligence or are so rough that only the hardest workers would be willing to take them on. In the society we live in now when we push people out of work by using machines to do their job we will have to then provide for them.
In December I hired a homeless man to help me get the house ready to sell. tiling, molding, mending the dock, and doing yard work. Most of the things I did have to show him how to do beforehand. I ended up giving him an extra van so he would have a work vehicle, helped him get it registered and titled, and paid him $15/hr. He definitely worked his butt off, and is currently working as a handyman still. Definitely not a useless person he was just made worthless by the society that we live in that would prefer to replace people with machines. Sorry if I am sounding like a Luddite.
Davy on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 7:34 pm
Red, the noober is less predictable than his cousin Makster. Noober lurks in the dark swamp of hate and after bottom feeding he climbs out to dry his scales. He will be back.
GregT on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 7:37 pm
“They will pay a far heavier price because they are sacrificing their local environment to do all this producing.”
For starters red, they are producing for us. It is us in the West that are exporting our pollution to the East.
Secondly, and most importantly, it is no longer only the local environment that us consumers in the West are sacrificing. We passed that point about 40 years ago.
Davy on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 7:37 pm
Don, seems we have a lot in common. I have a soft heart for those in need and often employ unskilled labor. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
redpill on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 7:55 pm
“For starters red, they are producing for us.”
Where is the logic in that statement? Are China and India, for example, naïve innocents that have been duped into the path they’ve taken or did they as sovereign nations choose this path?
Greg, are you saying the pollution in the East is more our fault than that of their own leadership?
redpill on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 8:00 pm
Oh, and Greg, the “West” has taken large measures to protect their local environment because the citizens demanded such. Not so much in China, Russia, etc.
GregT on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 9:25 pm
“Greg, are you saying the pollution in the East is more our fault than that of their own leadership?”
No red, what I am saying it that it is our, including yours and my personal consumption of cheap consumer goods, that has been largely responsible for the industrial expansion, growth, and pollution in the East. They have not been duped into anything, they are following our lead.
“Oh, and Greg, the “West” has taken large measures to protect their local environment because the citizens demanded such.”
The people demanded such after we had already caused huge environmental concerns. The East is following in our footsteps. They want the same lifestyles that we have, which are unsustainable.
The biggest concern to the Global environment, and all life on Earth, is climate change. We in the West started it, and we are still contributing to it.
redpill on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 11:09 pm
Greg,
I think we are for the most part on the same page, vis-à-vis climate change.
I think our greatest problem is that the effects of this change are roughly a generation off. Meaning, those that are living it up in the present can tell themselves that they won’t have to pay a price for their lifestyle.
I don’t eat beef anymore because I recognize the true “price” of the merchandise. I try and keep track of the fish I eat out of concern for extinction of the most threatened species, which at this point is almost all of them.
“We in the West started it”? Fine. If we hadn’t….just be honest and look at human nature.
We have got to let go of the blame game and focus on those things that have a chance at uniting us.
Peace.
peakyeast on Wed, 4th Feb 2015 11:41 pm
Concerning the freedom of using your own property for what you want:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv1v-CO7T8M
Staggering content.
GregT on Thu, 5th Feb 2015 12:19 am
red,
“I think our greatest problem is that the effects of this change are roughly a generation off.”
The effects of this change are already occurring, and are going to get exponentially worse for the next 40 years. If you are in your 60s, then perhaps the worst of the effects will occur ‘roughly a generation off’. If you are under 60, you are going to see some very disturbing changes within your natural lifetime. Just like I will.
I am not as interested in what MIGHT have been caused by whom, as I am in what HAS been caused by whom. I have no illusions of grandeur about human nature. If the East had of risen before the West, things might have been much worse than they are now, or not. None of us knows what could have been, because that is not what happened.
I don’t believe in letting go of the ‘blame game’, I believe in ‘fessing’ up and telling the truth. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone needs to admit to making those mistakes, before they can take steps to mitigate the consequences, and/or to not make those same mistakes again. Our society is doing none of the above. We are pointing fingers at what the East is doing now, while ignoring our own contribution, and continuing on with what caused all of the problems to begin with, BAU.
I am not at war with you red, I am only interested in the truth. If we can’t admit to our own mistakes, there is no possible way for people to ever be united.
Peace to you as well.
Davy on Thu, 5th Feb 2015 4:47 am
I see no evidence that it is possible in our markets and social systems to mitigate either AGW or social inequality. The time frame and the economic descent conditions will not allow cooperative mitigation of these issues. There will only be the feel good meetings by the incompetent global governmental waste of time people. They can make the nice trips to the AGW conventions burning all that carbon to complain about all that carbon. We can have idiot chumps like Al-the-Gore fly in to claim we should eliminate cars. There is nothing smart at these meetings it is only a bizarre farce we humans play on ourselves. Nature will solve the population and AGW situation man can’t.
The other issue that makes me sick is I am not seeing the finger pointing at the Asians. What I am seeing is an insane global group of developing nations lead by the biggest Asians pointing the fingers. India and China have no intention of backing off growth. Their evil strategy is to point finger at the west while they continue their all-important growth policies. India and China want big militaries, space programs and shiny new skyscrapers. If we were on a much bigger planet and had the time then we would have more wiggle room to acknowledge who historically has contributed to this mess and that is the west no doubt. Let’s place the blame on the Europeans they stated the industrial revolution. Where does the blame game stop? Blame games are resentment and the failure of accepting responsibility.
This east finger pointing is like the Jews or the blacks feeing entitled to compensation many years after the fact from a generation that had nothing to do with the original crime. That is gilt politics which is another farce. The west only recently realized the extent of the AGW problem. China and India with their huge population that is growing and consuming more are clearly in the wrong to point fingers that AGW has to be a western sacrifice with their right to development to reach a fair and balanced development. That my friends is a crock of shit. Everyone has to do less with less not just the west. The Asian are blatant hypocrites wanting their cake and eat it.
We know all the foul things that are western. We see how the system perpetuates the consumption for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many at home and globally. We know how bad the MSM corruption and message distortion is. What is wrong here and elsewhere is the constant pointing at how bad the west is with the very small afterthought that the east has any kind of role to play in the current problems of all kinds.
It is the Asian over population and ecological degradation that is the worst quantitatively NOW. It is the Asians that have the duel deadly growth of population and consumption. It is the global public opinion that the Chinese are the next economic and military superpower. It is global opinion that the US is bad and the Chinese are the new rock star. All the while the Chinese suck up the worlds remaining resources. These global countries are deceiving themselves and one day China is going to be hated just like the US. One day soon when the pie has shrunk enough a fat ass Chinaman will be in the corner of the room with all the crumbs. Then all those global idiot finger pointing blame gamer nations are going to be pissed. The US will never be liked again but soon these idiot nations will realize how bad Asia is.
GregT on Thu, 5th Feb 2015 9:53 am
“All the while the Chinese suck up the worlds remaining resources.”
If the West stopped hyper-consuming Asian manufactured ‘goods’, the growth in the East would end. Of course this would also greatly affect our economies in the West, as a large portion of our economies are now a result of cheap foreign labour. The East hasn’t risen as an industrial powerhouse on it’s own. It was Western multinationals that gave the East the technologies, the infrastructure, and the now highly skilled workforce. Outsourcing of labour has long term unintended consequences, all in the name of huge profits for the few at the expense of the many.
I have no interest in the blame game, let’s just tell it like it is. The West has created a monster. Stop feeding it.